Meow. Meow. Meow. Governor Dan Malloy says municipal leaders are meowing way too much about his proposed budget. Led by the municipal lobbying group Connecticut Conference of Municipalities, local elected officials screeched a collective cat chorus in Hartford today about state funding to municipalities. Municipal bean counters in Bridgeport say while Malloy hasn’t bailed on education funding he’s cutting other historically anticipated revenue items such as the state’s take on slot revenues in addition to his proposal to eliminate taxes on automobiles collected by municipalities. Mark Ojakian, chief of staff to Malloy, released the following statement today concerning state funding for municipalities:
“As town leaders know, every budget is about setting priorities. The Governor’s priority is to continue the effort to improve public schools and create jobs, and to do it without raising taxes. In fact, he is trying to ease the burden on middle class families by providing some much-needed tax relief.
“We understand that change is hard, but change is also necessary. Local leaders know that.”
Translation: we hear you, but shut up!
Of course, if Malloy were still mayor of Stamford he’d be meowing right with municipal leaders.
Municipal leaders are counting on their legislative friends to bail them out on funding requests for fear of huge local property tax increases. Mayor Bill Finch will submit his proposed spending plan to the City Council in less than two weeks with multiple scenarios based on state funding. Basically, it’s a good, bad, ugly situation. The mayor was in Hartford today protesting the governor’s budget proposal, telling reporters, “We want a better budget than what has been proposed so far.”
Finch said Malloy’s budget is so severe it could force cuts in public safety.
Lennie, what is Mark Ojakian trying to say? That our leaders have been acting like a bunch of little boys or girls?
Pretty much.
Man up, my ass. This jerk is making the state budget look good by eliminating distributions to the cities. He is a loser. Always was a loser and will certainly lose his bid for a second term even if a dummy like Finch were to run against him. But I think we will see some real strong gubernatorial aspirants. Malloy’s smoke and mirrors economics will destroy him. All of these widespread eliminations to the cities and not one thin dime of tax reduction. Big jerk. That’s what he is.
“Finch said Malloy’s budget is so severe it could force cuts in public safety.”
The girl in me says: Malloy knows the above statement is really not true. Surely, Finch doesn’t mean layoffs for cops. If so, that means the rookies must go. What if the rookies are paid with federal dollars? Where does Finch find the dollars to give back, return or reimburse the feds? If Finch lets go 30 cops, where is he going to get the money to cover the overtime needed to make up for the shortness of 30 cops? This means the layoff must come from other departments or union membership. Last hired first fired means the layoff must come from the bunch hired by the Finch administration. Who are the sacred cows?
Joel Gonzalez, good point. The City will pay 25% of the salary and the percentage changes each year. When it comes time to cut the City budget you go where the money is and the money is in the salary of police and firefighters.
If that does happen to cut both departments then there will a danger to the public. Closing firehouses and cutting back on police coverage will cause great risk to the public but it’s coming because Bridgeport is not growing its way out.
Public safety! Gotta have it, right? But what is it really?
I’ll let Ron and Andy talk about fire personnel and practices as they know something about the subject. Because of comments on OIB I have learned about flexibility and efficiency created by something called “travel time” that provides adequate coverage much of the time and saves money.
Over in the Police Department I am still stuck with the idea of 5 shifts of 21 patrol officers for 105, another 100 or so supervisory people and another 200 police employed among them a Chief and 4 or 5 Assistant Chiefs. Sounds like a lot of people doing what? And since they secured their own public relations person, the vision has not become clearer.
But people have let on perhaps 100 or more are ready and waiting to file their retirement papers. And there is a fair comment about a significant number who are “disabled.” But what are you doing about those folks? There is also the report of the former Bridgeport cop who took the disability route and the income that comes with it, but signed on with a town north of New Haven as a cop? Go figure. How does that happen? What does the Police Commission do or say on said subject? Will Mr. O’Malley who is reported to have cleaned up the Fire Department backlog of people not able to perform their duties sit down for an interview with Lennie for OIB? Is there a waste of funds going on among the ranks of current employees? Time will tell.
The police and fire departments are heavy at the top! The longer these guys stay on, the more chance they will achieve a “disability” designation.
Chief Rooney, is he needed? He’s already collecting a “disability” pension of near his salary … should the City be throwing him a bone? Why isn’t anyone asking why he can still work and get a “disability” pension to boot? He has earned a great pension, that’s enough of a gift from Mayor Finch and Mario!
Gaudett? Make Honis Chief? Do we need both? Yikes … we are top heavy, and there are no workers.
BARF, you got it right, Mayor Finch should have done a nationwide search to find the BEST new fire chief available to come to Bridgeport and let Chief Rooney retire with his “disability” pension.
*** Cut and dry if the city wants to save money in the long term, say the Public Safety Field then an investment now in community public safety cameras would cut down the who done it Q&A somewhat along with other public safety concerns, in turn saving money, time and manpower, no? *** FROM A SAVINGS POINT OF VIEW ***
Gov. Malloy is not making the kind of transformational changes the state needs to make but at least he knows increasing taxes again is a bad idea. Mayor Finch needs to get that message and heed it.
Malloy is attempting to put an unfair tax burden on all home/business owners by eliminating the vehicle taxes, which are paid by all residents. His back-up plan is to eliminate that tax and incorporate a tax on home heating oil. Again, the home/business owners will suffer the burden of more taxation. Where does he think the average citizen is going to get this money? If he had any savvy, he would equalize the mil rate on vehicles statewide rather than having one municipality pay more tax for the same car than a neighboring town/city. That would seem fair. With the outlandish proposals he is looking to make law, it’s apparent the man has lost his mind and will clearly be a one-term governor.
One-term Dan will be toast soon. And hopefully the mindless sheep here in Bpt (who re-elected Finch) won’t forget what Bill Finch did to us during the blizzard–and send HIM packing too.
Public Safety cuts in Bridgeport? Although I understand where Finch is going with that line of thinking, let’s call it what it is: A bluff. Why don’t we just chum the streets with our valuables and call it a day? However in this case Hizzoner is correct. He just needs a better battle call.
The budget structure Malloy is proposing smacks of amateurism and reactive desperation. Like the President, one Governor cannot be expected to be a renaissance leader. That is what cabinets are for. So am I to believe the panel of experts Malloy is paying have sanctioned these half-witted proposals? I tend to doubt it. More likely, because the recovery is not moving along to Malloy’s liking, he is putting forth a “let’s do it my way, because your way is not going to move things along fast enough to make me look good in the next election cycle and I am willing to take a gamble at this point” approach. Yes, that’s more like it, Dannel. We taxpayers should count ourselves lucky your thinking is plural enough to present multiple options: sucky, suckier and suckiest.
Thank you sir, may I have another?